Alaska may be the coldest state on the thermometer, but it's the hottest state on television.
And mountain man Marty Raney says the reason is pretty simple.
"It's the last unexperienced place in America," Raney says. "Any other place you go, any place down South, it's all been mapped, logged, hiked, game-managed.
"In Alaska, if you go a mile off a road almost anywhere in the state, you're putting your foot on ground that has never been walked before by any human being. Ever."
Okay, and it's probably also an enticement to television viewers that some of this breathtaking pristine virgin land could kill you.
Tyler Johnson/Brian Catalina Entertainment, LL
From left, Brent Sass, Tyrell Seavey, Marty Raney, Matt Raney, Dallas Seavey, Tyler Johnson, Willi Prittie and Austin Manelick standing around a camp fire in tghe Tordrillo Mountains, Alaska, on "Ultimate Survival Alaska"
For recent proof, Raney cites "Ultimate Survival Alaska," a National Geographic competition series that returns for its second season Sunday night at 9 and in which Raney is again one of the competitors.
"In the first episode," he says, "there's a scene where one of the guys falls out of his boat into the river. I thought he was dead. We all thought he was dead. When you go in there, most of the time you don't come out.
"There are scenes this season where [contestants] are walking through the woods and suddenly they're standing next to a Kodiak bear who is close enough to kill them.
"It didn't happen. But anyone who knows Alaska knows it could have. You don't know what a bear is going to do.
"We all know not everything that happens on 'reality' shows is real. In the places where we film this show, the danger is absolutely real."
Since most Americans will slow down for a close look at a dented bicycle fender, it's no wonder a sizable audience gathers around its TV screens for shows like Discovery's "Deadliest Catch" and History's "Ice Road Truckers."
Watching crab fisherman toss around hundreds of pounds of equipment while metal lines whip past them on the deck of a boat that's being tossed almost sideways on a frigid ocean? And they're already half-frozen themselves?
That'll get the attention of an office worker looking for a vicarious thrill.
Watching big guys in big trucks drive frozen roads in subzero temperatures?
Yeah, anyone who has ever skidded on a half-inch of ice will watch that.
National Geographic's lineup also includes "Life Below Zero," about people who live in places that are too cold for lichen, and "Alaska State Troopers," about men and women whose challenges are a little different from those faced by the NYPD.
"We love Alaska," says Heather Moran, executive vice president of planning and strategy. "We're always on the lookout for potential new subjects."
So are several rivals, including the Discovery Channel family.
Besides "Deadliest Catch," Discovery also has "Alaska: The Last Frontier," "Gold Rush," "Yukon Men" and "Bering Sea Gold."
Its sister channel TLC did a season of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," featuring the former governor tooling around the state. Another sister, Destination America, launched a "Buying Alaska" show this year.
Interestingly, Alaska is one of the few states that seems more conducive to this kind of reality and documentary-style show than to scripted drama.
ABC's tongue-in-cheek "Men in Trees" only lasted a couple of seasons, and earlier Alaska-based dramas like "Klondike," "Kodiak" and "The Alaskans" barely made it through one.
The most notable exception was CBS' quirky "Northern Exposure," which ran from 1990 to 1995 and was set in a town with a prominent moose.
Which might make it a reality show after all.
"There was a moose walking through downtown Anchorage just the other day," muses Raney.
He's not surprised, though, that it's possible to build a TV show around its setting as much as around its characters.
"No matter what story you're telling here, the real star is Alaska," says Raney. "There's no state, or combination of states, that has the size, the animals, the vegetation and just the uniqueness of this one."
"A big part of the attraction is that it is physically gorgeous and there's so much you don't see anywhere else," says Moran. "That also can make it a hard place to film, so having the resources of National Geographic, which has been filming hard places for more than a century, is invaluable."
When Nat Geo's "Life Below Zero" crews were filming subject Sue Aikens, who lives 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the midwinter temperatures hit 60 below.
They could only film outside for about 15 minutes at a time because after that they were in danger of frostbite and their gear started freezing.
When someone stole most of Aikens' supply of winter fuel and she had to conserve the rest by heating only a small part of her house, the whole crew ended up bunking in the dining room and using one small chamber pot for a bathroom.
"It's not like our crew stays in a Hilton while the subjects live in igloos," says Moran.
Raney, a native Alaskan who says he never sets foot outside the state, admits there's divided opinion among state residents about outsiders who come in to look at the mountains or the shoreline from a safe distance, then fly or sail back to the south.
"Personally, I welcome them," he says. "They come for two weeks, take a lot of pictures, go back home and have those memories for the rest of their lives.
"But me, I can go out and look at those mountains or those rivers every day. I can see the Northern Lights in the sky every night."
Truth is, says Raney, the 700,000 or so Alaska residents "are no more or less smart than the other 315 million Americans.
"We do the same things as everyone else, except we do them a little differently because of the circumstances.
"We have seven months of winter, so a lot of days it doesn't get light until 9:30 in the morning and gets dark again at 3. And we eat a lot of moose and caribou dinners."
Those little differences, says Moran, help to keep Alaska shows interesting.
Raney admits, though, that he wouldn't participate in a lot of the Alaska TV shows he has seen, because even the reality shows can feel too staged.
"I was nervous about this one," he says. "But once I saw what National Geographic had done, I felt very comfortable coming back for a second season."
If viewers like what they see, says Moran, so does the network, and with close to 600,000 square miles of space, there's a lot of Alaska that won't get explored for many years to come.
"It is," she says, "the ultimate mysterious place."
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